Hungary

So infuriating is the peculiar nature of the lead character in Manhattan's Mint Theater Company's latest farcical production, that your typical New Yorker may likely have to restrain himself... even herself... from leaping on stage.

When I first met Zoltan Illes in 1990, he was 29 years old and in his first month as the youngest state secretary in modern Hungarian history, working in the ministry of environment. He granted me quite a long interview and was unusually frank not only about the environmental situation in the country but also about the challenges he faced in his own position.

In an interview in Warsaw in August 2013, Dariusz Kalan, a Central Europe expert with the Polish Institute for International Affairs (PISM), talked about Poland's attempt to represent the region in European bodies, why young people are leaning toward conservative movements, and how Central Europe views Russia.

Pragmatism however should not be an easy way out of the responsibility for human rights and dignity that we, as democracies, share in the world. We should not suggest that we do not have an influence, when we actually do.

When it comes to Roma, East-Central Europe is still in its segregation era. The business community hasn't really begun to see Roma as consumers because it's too busy worrying about how an association with Roma would adversely affect its image. Istvan Forgacs would like to change that.

Very often I look at the pictures of my grandmother Paula. She was warm and loving. I imagine my conversations with her, sitting on her lap. I hear her. Her voice makes me feel strong and indestructible.

One rainy evening in early October 2007, on a winding residential street in Budapest, Hungary, I got lost. I pulled out my notebook, squinting at the greying street signs as I tried to decipher something about my location.

For the most part, ethnic minorities of Transcarpathia have gotten along with each other in recent years, though the area's delicate social balance could be upset by outsiders like Putin and his nationalist right wing allies in neighboring Hungary.

There are hundreds of holiday traditions around the globe, many of which you've probably never heard of -- the giant goat made of hay (Sweden), the witch that brings candy (Italy), the burning pile of dirt (Guatemala).

The world is more complicated. The knots are somehow knottier. Bringing in a council of concerned citizens to patiently untie the Gordian knot of politics may take longer. But, in the end, consent is mightier than the sword.

Despite the ongoing struggle for civil rights on the part of ethnic Hungarians and the continued playing of nationalist cards by extremists on both sides, Ungvari Zrinyi believes that the situation has improved overall.

There are somewhere between one and two million Roma in Romania. Ratys estimates that there are around 300 Roma in elected office at a local level. But it's difficult to calculate how underrepresented Roma are at the local level.

Activist Judit Hatfaludi took a position with Hungary's Feminist Network to coordinate a campaign to lobby for the pro-choice bill back in the '90s. We recently caught up about the current state of women's issues in Hungary, why the annual Pride marches are no longer like jubilees, and what she does now in her current work as a shaman.

The way I see it, a place that creates beauty, must also have a lot of beauty to behold. That theory prompted me to add Budapest to my travel plans, and within minutes of arriving, I knew that I would not be disappointed.

Aladar Horvath has been a Roma civil rights activist for more than two decades. He created one of the most important Roma organizations -- Phralipe -- and served in the Hungarian parliament in the early 1990s. He has also studied the experience of African Americans.

An ethnic map of Romania explains a great deal about the relations between the majority and the minorities in Romania. Ethnic Hungarians have an absolute majority in two counties -- Harghita and Covasna -- in the very heart of the country.

Active engagement in public life is the most meaningful way to honor those we have lost, in my case my grandparents, my parents and my husband -- who did so much to fight the bullies and the demagogues on the world stage -- all the while putting up with a feisty Hungarian wife for 17 years.